


Out of the Darkness

by AckleIne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:32:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AckleIne/pseuds/AckleIne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’m falling. This is nothing new for me. I’ve had the same nightmare for as long as I can remember. All around me is pitch blackness. It’s the kind of blackness where you’re scared that a monster might pop out and swallow you whole. My heart beats loudly and at first its something that I thought was caused by too much adrenaline, but after having the dream so many times, I now realize that it’s silent. And I mean -9 decibels kind of silent...</p><p>Dean has had restless nights for a long time. His only relief is by painting about it. All his other paintings had been dark, but then someone comes along to be his new muse, inspiring him to paint something beautiful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Darkness

I’m falling. This is nothing new for me. I’ve had the same nightmare for as long as I can remember, even when I was younger and used to stay the night at Cas’s house. I still do stay the night at his house, but not as often as when we were younger.

In my dream I’m falling. All around me is pitch blackness. It’s the kind of blackness where you’re scared that a monster might pop out and swallow you whole. My heart beats loudly and at first its something that I thought was caused by too much adrenaline, but after having the dream so many times, I now realize that it’s silent. And I mean -9 decibels kind of silent.

I fall for a long time, but I don’t know exactly how long because time doesn’t seem to pass normally wherever I am in the dream. Then out of no where, flames bloom to life in my field of vision, the glare and heat radiated off them unbearable, and I’m engulfed by them.

The next part of the dream is gruesomely painful, which it shouldn’t be because it’s a dream. After the flames engulf me, everything is black again, but not the same blackness as before. This time, it’s as if I’ve blacked out.When I come to, I’m suspended in the air by big hooks, kind of like clevis sling hooks but without the latch part. They’re connected to chains and pierce random parts of my body.

I usually scream “help me” at least once during this part of the dream. And then I wake, drenched in cold sweat, my hands either bunched into fists or grabbing the edges of the bed in a white-knuckled grip.

My shrink believes that it might have something to do with my parents getting divorced when I was six. Honestly, I think she’s as crazy as my freshman General Science teacher, Ms. Simet, if she thinks Hell is somehow related to my parents’ divorce. I’m not really sure if it’s Hell, but that’s what I’m going to call it.

The only good thing about this nightmare is that it inspires me to do some really amazing art. It’s not all happy art, rainbows, unicorns, and shit like that. It’s dark, not just dark, it’s kind of crazy. Well, it’s not crazy, but it might make me look crazy. I mean who else paints about blackness, fire, red eyes, and people being ripped apart by hooks?

Anyways, I make a decent living off my artwork, which is good because I don’t live with either of my parents. Not anymore. I used to live with my mom, after the divorce my dad didn’t want much to do with me anymore, but now I’m an emancipated minor. Everyone at school knows I’m emancipated and to them I’m an anomaly. To the kids who’ve seen my artwork, I’m a profit of God. They think that I know when the apocalypse will happen, that I can read or tell fortunes, or know what will happen to them if they sin, or some shit like that.

I don’t give a shit about what anyone at my school thinks. Well, everyone except Cas. He’s my best friend and he’s always been there for me, so his opinion kind of matters a lot to me.

Whatever, I have to get up now, got to go to this shit hole called East Los High. Even though it sounds like its in Los Angeles, it’s not. It’s actually in upper Miami, Florida. ELH may suck, but I still go because Cas is there and he is someone I can be myself around. And maybe I go because I’m required to go by law. Even if I’m an emancipated minor and practically an adult. I’m 17 and in one year I’ll be out of that shit hole and I’ll never look back. It’s not the students that make ELH so unbearable, it’s the teachers. They hate that I’ve become so successful at such a young age and that they had to work maybe 20 years or more of their life away and still they’re not where I am today. I forgot to mention that I am the world’s youngest millionaire, having three million in total. What can I say? People really love my paintings.

Pulling the white, king-size, down comforter off my mostly naked body, I get up and stretch. Then I walk over to my dresser and pull on a random shirt with some random pants. I never have to try real hard to look good, my looks are naturally hot. I’m not conceited, I’ve just accepted that I was born sexy.

My place isn’t anything fancy, just a one-roomed loft, but not a small 12 x 12 kind of room. It’s more like a 22 X 28 foot room. I deck it out with cheapish salvation store goods, not because I’m a cheap ass, but because I like to donate some of my money to charities, especially ones for humane shelters and cancer charities.

I walk into the kitchen portion of my loft and grab a bowl. Today I’m going to have cereal; I like to switch up what I eat for breakfast everyday. Sometimes it’s waffles, other days it’s pancakes, then there’s always the possibility of pop tarts or toaster strudels. But like I said, today it’s Honey Bunches of Oats, my favorite.

After finishing my cereal, I headed back up to my room to grab my iPhone 5 from it’s charging dock. I quickly checked it to see if I had gotten any recent texts. None. Weird, usually someone texts me. It’s hard to keep your number a secret when you’re a famous artist.  

I put my phone in my pocket as I was heading to the door. Now I may have said that I get my furniture from salvation stores, but that doesn’t mean that I drive a shabby, cheap, p.o.s of a car. I actually happen to drive my dream car, a 2013 Corvette convertible, black with red racing stripes down the hood.

Walking down the many steps from the front door to my car, I felt a buzzing in my pants pocket. Taking out my phone, I saw that I had received a text message from Cas.

_Great news._

_What’s so great on a Monday? :/_

_I got a boyfriend over Thanksgiving break._

_Yay! That’s great news. :D_

I forgot to mention that my best friend also happens to be gay. He’s been openly gay since the eighth grade, but he admitted to me that he was gay long before that. When we were 9, Cas told me that he was gay. He wanted to know if I was straight or not. I don’t know for sure, but I think that he might have been interested in me back then, not sure why I was such a gawky little boy. Anyways, I told him no, I was straight and since then I’ve had about 12 girlfriends. I know that seems like a lot, but like I said, I am good looking.

_Yep, it is great news. I’ll have to introduce him to you when you get to school! ;)))))_

_Ok, can’t wait._

Arriving at my car, I put my phone back into my pocket and got my keys out to unlock the car. Opening the car door, I sat in the driver’s seat, closing the door behind me. I always liked sitting in my car for a few minutes. Call me strange, but this was the time where I got to imagine what my first time would be like. Yeah, I’m a virgin, but don’t judge. It’s always the virgins who have the most imaginative minds, although, usually they imagined stuff like rose petals and candles. My first time is gonna be on the hood of this car. Yeah, I’ve had 12 girlfriends, but they never really did anything besides the occasionally blow job. I don’t think that counts though, so I’m a virgin.

After I got my sex fantasies out of the way, I put the key in the ignition, pushing it forward to start it. The engine came to life with a roar and I put it into gear so that I could drive to school.

Once I get to school, I head right to my locker hoping to run into Cas. Honestly, this is a big deal for him. I mean, he has been openly gay since the eighth grade, but no one else at our school is gay.

I am just about to open my locker when Cas comes up to me with his usual entourage. He’s pretty popular, especially with the ladies, and I don’t mean in the usual “oh he’s so hot” kind of way. I mean they like him in the way a girl has a best friend that is an awe-inspiring shopper. His crowd was fairly large so I didn’t see this so called boyfriend of his anywhere.

When Cas finally reached me, he asked me, “So how was your Thanksgiving break?” It was obvious that he was trying to draw out the mysteriousness of the whole boyfriend thing with small talk.

“It was ok. I didn’t really do much just ate out on my own since, as you know, I live by myself. And then I just surfed netflix on my Playstation 4 trying to find something remotely interesting to watch. I settled on Pirates of the Caribbean 3.”

“Oh, well I didn’t mean to bring up some of your repressed feelings about your past. I just wanted to see if you did anything fun.”

“Not really. Are you going to introduce me to your new boyfriend or not?” I was starting to get impatient, mostly because Thanksgiving just reminds me of how alone I am. Being an emancipated minor does have it’s perks, like not having to deal with my crazy, brokenhearted mom, but now that I am alone, I have no one to eat with.

“Uh, yeah sure. Dean, this is my boyfriend Niko,” Cas said as he and his entourage parted to reveal a teenager that I had never before seen. “Niko is from Australia.”

“Ay, nice to meet chya mate,” Niko said, pulling one corner of his mouth up into a smile and offering his hand out for me to shake, so I did. I even offered a smile in return.

“Nice to meet you. So how exactly did you and Cas meet?”

“Well, long story short…it’s actually uh kind of funny. We were at this rage and were both doing our separate thing, but some force out there gradually drew us together. Or at least it must have because we both ended up playing spin the bottle. Every time Cas spun it, it would spin and point to me. Every time I spun it, it would spin and point to him, so we got a lot of pash time that first night. That was the first night of Thanksgivin’ break; every night after that, we would try to find some way to meet up.”

For the longest time I just stood there speechless. I didn’t know what to say. Obviously, I was happy for Cas and this Niko guy seemed pretty cool, but for some strange reason it made me feel a twinge of sadness, like I was losing Cas. I don’t know why; I’m not gay and I’ve never had any feelings for Cas that way. So I just said the first thing that popped into my head, “That’s a great story and all, but did you guys know that you would be going to the same school?”

“Nope, but isn’t it great?” Cas asked, coming up behind Niko and wrapping his arms around his waist, resting his chin in the crook of his neck. Technically at ELH we’re not supposed to show PDA, but no one would call out this public display of affection. Teachers seem to have a fear of coming off as homophobes here.

“Yeah. Yeah it is great. Just don’t forget to include me in stuff too. You wouldn’t want to be like my other friends and forget about me now that you have a boyfriend, do you?” I asked, trying my best to pull of a truly horrified face. Failing to do so, I just broke out into an uncontrollable laughing fit. Everyone who thought that I was serious and was just staring at me awkwardly started laughing too.

Eventually I stopped laughing. Cas pulled himself away from Niko then and walked over to me, placing his hand on my shoulder. “I would never forget about you. You know that; you mean too much to me.”

I just stared at him for a few seconds, not knowing what to say. I settled on, “Cas it was just a joke. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I know but I like to make sure that the people I care about _know_ that I care about them.”

The bell rang then and I headed off to class.

Things picked up a new routine after Cas got a boyfriend and it became the new normality:get to school, talk with Cas and Niko, go to class (I didn’t have any classes with Niko or Cas), hang out with Niko and Cas sometimes after school, do homework. It was like this for a few weeks.

Then one day Cas sent me this text:

_Urgent. Need 2 talk 2 U after school. Meet me at my house?_

_Sure._

All day was torture. Thoughts kept swirling around and banging the inside of my skull. What could be so important that Cas needed me to meet him at his house after school? Why couldn’t we just talk in the hallway after class or something? Was he going to break up with Niko? I tried to push the endless questions out of my mind, but it was useless, and because of it, I couldn’t concentrate on any of my classes that day. I failed my Algebra II test, but it didn’t bug me too much because I didn’t really understand the class and because of that my grade was pretty low to begin with. There was no saving my Math grades. I sucked at Math.

Finally, the end of the day arrived. When the final bell sounded, I was already out the door and making my way across the student parking lot. I got in my car, turned it on and sped out of the parking lot, burnin rubber.

Once I arrived at Cas’s house, I sent him this text:

_I’m here. Are you here?_

Cas doesn’t have a car, which is weird because he practically lives in a mansion. My guess on why is probably that his parents don’t trust him enough to drive. Anyways, about his house...his driveway entrance is guarded by this camera thing that you have to talk into so that it recognizes your voice. If your voice is recognized, then the gates will open for you. If not, well obviously the gates don’t open for you. Past the gates, his driveway goes on for a ways then circles around this huge pond that has this fountain waterfall in it. That’s my favorite thing. When we were younger, Cas and I used to play in it all day until either his parents or my parents (if they were there) told us to get out.

The entryway to his house is huge too. His porch is longer than it is wide and there’s eight columns spread out evenly to support its roof. Inside his house, it’s spacious. There’s only doors to important rooms, like the study, the bedrooms, or the bathrooms. Otherwise, there’s just arches that lead into rooms. And the wood work. The wood work in there is amazing. Everything imported from different countries and of different shades of brown.

I love his house. I know that I could live in a house of my own like that, but I like to keep everything simple and manage my money wisely.

Cas replied a few minutes later with:

_No but I’ll be there in a few. My bus is just a few blocks away._

I didn’t know what to do until Cas arrived. His parents were nice people and I could go knock on the door, but it would be awkward sitting in there with just them, even if they did think of me as a son. So I let my thoughts drift and they just happened to drift towards Cas. I wondered what he and Niko had been doing lately? Had they had their first kiss yet? Has Cas had his way with Niko yet? Cas wasn’t a virgin. He’s snuck around with other guys in the past, guys who didn’t want people to know they were gay. Freshman year was when he lost his virginity to guy that Cas can’t even remember the name of. He says it’s horrible that the first time he had sex, it was with some guy he barely knew, but someone he thought had loved him. The morning after they did it, the guy was gone, and there was a note left in his place, on the pillow. Cas said it had said something like “I’m sorry but I can’t do this with you all the time. I will always love you and you will always be my first.” Cas hadn’t understood how someone could be so cruel back then, but now that he knows, he’s a little bit more careful about who he sleeps with.

This year though, Cas wants to find someone that he can be with for years to come. I think it’s because he is tired of always having to sneak around with guys; he wants it to be a public thing.

I was wondering if Niko might be the one when the grumbling of an engine and the sputtering of an exhaust pipe pulled me back to reality. These were the signature sounds of school buses at ELH, a place where they spent more money on security than fixing anything, whether it be a school bus or a broken toilet.

I got out of my car just as Cas was getting off the bus. He had a ways to walk so I leaned on my car, waiting for him.

When he was finally standing directly in front of me, I didn’t know whether to speak first or to wait for him to speak first. So we just stood there awkwardly for a few moments and in those few moments I found myself studying his face. I had never noticed before how blue his eyes were or the sharpness of his jaw line or the fact that he had a slight butt chin. These were all things that I would come to love intensely about him.

Finally, I was the one to break the silence, “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

At first all Cas did was stare at me, and then he blinked a few times as if I’d broken him out a trance. He smiled, this little half smile thing that he always does and said, “Niko and I had sex last night.”

That was not what I was expecting to hear. I’m sure the surprise had shown clearly on my face, but I tried to hide it. “Oh, really? And how was it? Did you enjoy it? Was it great? I mean I’m sure you were great because you have a lot of experience, but was he great?”

“Uh he was okay I guess. It was only his second time. But that’s not what I needed to talk to you about. Niko’s moving back to Australia in a couple of weeks,” there was a sadness in Cas’s eyes that I hadn’t seen there before.

Again I was shocked. Just when things were starting to go good for Cas, something bad had to happen to ruin everything. “I’m sorry, Cas,” I said as I placed my hand on his shoulder.

I looked up into his eyes and saw a dark, deep intensity in them. Suddenly his hand was on the back of my neck, his fingers intertwined with my hair, and he was pulling me towards him. At first I was confused, and I tried to pull away, but once I got a grip on what was happening, I realized that I wanted it. So I let him pull me towards him. His lips met mine with a hungry kind of pressure and he slipped his tongue between my lips and into my mouth. My hands gradually found their way to the hemline of Cas’s shirt and slipped up underneath of it. I traced his happy trail, then worked my way up his abs, tracing every defined ab during the process. Finally, I came across his nipples and they were hard; I lay my hands flat against his pectorals over his nipples. Cas’s other hand had found its way under the front of my shirt and he pushed lightly on my abdomen until my back hit my car. Then his hand kind of teased the top of my pants, like he wanted to take them off, but wanted to wait also.

Just as quickly as it had started, it ended. Cas pulled away and looked at me, not with a smile, but with his mouth opened in horrified shock, like he couldn’t believe what he had just done. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He just stood there with his face in his hands, repeating it over and over.

My lips were still tingling from Cas’s kiss. I’d never realized that something as simple as a kiss could feel this good, especially one from a guy and not just any guy, Cas. I realized then that all those years and all those girlfriends...the reason I’d never slept with any of them was because I was waiting for Cas.

Breaking out of my trance, I saw that Cas was still standing there with his face in his hands, shaking his head slowly from side to side , and repeating “I’m sorry”. I took both of Cas’s hands in my own and pulled gently on them to uncover his face. Then, I cupped his chin in one hand and stroked the back of his hair with the other as I tilted it up to meet my own.

“Cas it’s fine,” I whispered. Not knowing what else to say, I tried to put the emotion of how I was feeling into my eyes and face so that he could see.

He just stared at me with such a sorrowful expression, one tear leaving his eye to leave a streak down his left cheek. “I’m a cheater, Dean. I’ve never been a cheater before. It’s an awful feeling. I have strong feelings for both you and Niko. I’m going to have to choose, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Well, I’m going to need some time to myself then. Would you mind leaving?”

I just nodded my head because I myself needed time to figure out what had just happened.

I didn’t talk to Cas much for the next few days. He avoided me and I avoided him. I avoided him because I didn’t want to know if I was the guy that Cas decided wasn’t worth his time. I didn’t want to be the one who got dumped, even if we weren’t technically together.

Then one day,which happened to be a Friday,  I ran into Niko and Cas in the hallway. They were holding hands and Cas was laughing at something he said.

“Oh ay mate. Nice ta see ya again. Haven’t seen ya around in a while,” Niko stated matter of factly.

“Yeah. I was...uh...busy with...stuff,” I stammered out; I couldn’t make myself meet either one of their eyes.

“Everything alright?” he asked, suspicion  heavy in his voice.

“Yeah. Everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be?” I asked, a bit of an edge to my voice, and this time I forced myself to meet Cas’s eyes. He just smiled at me like nothing had happened between us.

“Whoa, no need to get mad and act like you’ve been sprung,” Niko smirked, putting his hands in the air to show he meant no harm.

“I’m not,” I said, this time looking at Niko. “You two have a nice last week together.” I looked at them both once more before I turned and walked away down the hall to my next classes.

That night I was trying to work on some Algebra II homework when I heard a knock on the door. I wasn’t sure who it could be because no one usually came to my house, not even Cas.

I put my pencil down and walked across the room to the door, opening it to find Cas standing there. Instantly I felt rage bubble somewhere from deep within me.

“What do you want, Cas. It’s obvious that you don’t want to be with me. You made that pretty clear early today.” I didn’t phrase it as a question because I was hoping he might leave, maybe because he was afraid of confrontation or something.

“Can I talk to you for a second? I know it’s late or early because it’s actually 3 am, but I really need to talk to you,” he whispered, not meeting my eyes.

At first I stood there, weighing the pros and cons of letting him come into my home. Finally I decide the good outweighed the bad. “Sure, come on in.”

“It’s late. Don’t you ever sleep?”

“No. Not really. You didn’t come here to talk about my sleeping habits though, so what is it that you want?”

“I’m really sorry that you had to see us like that earlier. I know that I didn’t give you a warning and that it took you off guard.”

“Yeah it did. Now are we done here?”

“No. Not even close. Dean, I care about you and I don’t want to lose you.” Everything he had said before this had been barely louder than a whisper, but this...this was said at normal volume level. But with the force he put behind the words, he could have been screaming.

“I know. I care about you too, but you’re with Niko now. You told me that you don’t want to be a cheater. I don’t want you to be a cheater; I saw how it made you feel. I don’t want you to feel like that again,” I whispered back, looking at the floor instead of his face. I didn’t want him to know how upset this was making me. “Now can you please go before this leads to something more or I do something stupid?”

I heard the shuffling of footsteps and assumed that he was leaving. Instead, I felt his hands cup my face and pull it gently up so that he could see my expression. “Tell me the truth. Do you want me to go because if you do I’ll walk out that door and forget anything that ever happened between us. Is that what you want?”

“No. I don’t. I didn’t know it until the day you kissed me Cas, but I love you.” And that’s all it took to ignite the sparks that had been dying to roar into a fire between us. Cas pressed his lips to mine and slipped his tongue into my mouth. I felt a hunger that I didn’t know I had until that moment and I practically ripped his shirt off trying to get it up over his head. I moved from kissing his lips to leaving a trail of kisses down his jaw bone and then down his neck. He made this noise that I’d never heard before, but assumed was a moan, and pushed me onto the bed.

This time he was the one to yank my shirt off up over my head and he tossed it aside carelessly. Then he moved on to my pants, unbuttoning them and slipping them off of my legs, being a little bit more careful here. And then my underwear. I had never been completely naked in front of another person before, not even for my old girlfriends who used to give me blow jobs. But I didn’t mind being naked underneath of Cas. I liked then intense way he looked at me, like he couldn’t get enough.

He was trailing kisses down from my collar bone to…

When I woke up, I was nestled with my back against Cas’s stomach. We were both naked and his arm was wrapped around my my right arm, his hand clasping my hand. I realized then that I hadn’t had any nightmares. Nothing about the Hell I was so afraid I would one day be a part of.

I carefully unclasped my hand from his and turned to face him. A faint smile played on his lips. I hadn’t seen him look this peaceful in a long time. At school he would act like everything was alright, but underneath that cool exterior I knew he was hurting. I knew he couldn’t take much more of the sneaking around and I’m sure Niko moving back to Australia didn’t make things any better either.

He looked so beautiful and I wanted to paint him. So I got up, being careful not to wake him, and put on some pants. I walked over to the cabinet where I kept my painting supplies and opened it quietly. I heard a slight rustling sound and turned around to see that Cas had rolled over onto his back, but he still looked perfect.

First, I grabbed the easel, setting it up close enough so that I could capture it all, the way the sun rays hit his face, his faint little smile, how peaceful he looked, everything. Then I went and got all the different colors of paint that I would need. Finally, I pulled up a chair and set my canvas on the easel.

I began by painting his face, capturing every tiny detail and then I moved on to the way his arms and hands were positioned. One was underneath his head, causing it to tilt slightly to the left. The other lay at his left side, the palm face down. My white comforter only covered just below his hips to just above his mid thigh. One of his legs was straight, while the other was bent, his foot touching the side of his other leg. This made it look like his legs were forming the letter “P”.

Hours passed and I was just adding the finishing touches up on his painting when I heard him make a light “hmmmm” noise. I looked over and saw that he was raising his arms above his head to stretch. Then he curled his hands into fists and rubbed groggily at his eyes.

“What time is it?” he asked as he rose from the bed and came to see what I was doing.

I got up and walked over to the clock above the stove on the kitchen wall. “It’s about 12:30. You slept a long time.”

“Yeah I did. What time did you get up?”

“Uh...eight ish or so”

“That really happened last night,” he said, astonished. “We didn’t fall asleep til about 5 this morning. How could you get up so early?”

For a while I just stood there, my hands on the stove for support. After a while, I decided to walk back over to the bed and sit there. I patted the spot beside me and Cas, who was still stark naked, came and sat next to me.

“What is it, Dean? What’s wrong?”

“For the longest time, I’ve been having this nightmare.” And so I told him about the nightmare that’s been haunting my dreams ever since I was little and how it has inspired me to paint some really horrifying pictures, how I make my living off those paintings, and how until now I’ve had no one to confide in about it.

“How come you never told me?” Cas inquired, hurt written all over his face, his eyebrows knitted together in concern.

“Like I said, I never had anyone until now. No one would understand unless they really cared about me.” I looked up at him now and saw the understanding in his eyes. He obviously cared about me, but how much? I had to know. “Cas, do...do...do you..”

He smiled then and took my face in his hands again, “Yes, Dean, I do love you. I have since we were nine.” And then he was on top of me again.

Later that evening, I awoke to find Cas fully dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed beside me, stroking the hair back from my face.

When he saw that my eyes were mostly open, he smiled sadly. “I have to go home now. I’ve been gone for a day and a half and my parents are probably wondering where I am.”

“Sure,” I said as I pulled myself up into a sitting position, “there’s just one more thing that I have to do before you leave.” And with that I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in for one last kiss.

Monday morning I sent Cas this text:

_Want a ride?_

_I would love one. :)))) See you when you get here. ;)_

_Kk._

When I arrived at Cas’s  house, I waited down by the gated entrance. For whatever reason Cas had told he wanted to walk down the driveway. I didn’t have to wait long and when the gate slid open, it revealed Cas sporting a new Shearling Bomber Jacket with some Brown Shearling Lined Boots. He opened the door and sat in the passenger seat. I put the car into gear and headed to ELH.

I chuckled, “go shopping did ya?”

“Yeah, why do I look bad?”

“No. No, it’s a good look on you. Want to know what I was thinking about while I was waiting for your slow ass to get to my car?”

He glared at me then. “Slow ass? That’s a bit harsh. Why would I hurry? We’re just going to ELH.”

“Cas, I’m sorry you know that I didn’t mean it. Your ass is very fine,” I said, pinching it for emphasis. He laughed. “Now do you want to know what I was thinking about or not?”

He still had  a small smile on his lips when he said, “Sure, Dean. What were you thinking about while I walked my very fine slow ass down here?”

“I was thinking about where I fantasized my first time would be.”

“And…”

“Well, I always dreamed that it would be on the hood of this very car, but it didn’t happen that way. Strangely enough, that doesn’t bother me.”

He laughed then and didn’t stop for a few minutes. I glared at him. “I’m sorry. It’s just that it would have been way too uncomfortable to have sex on the hood of this car. You can trust me on that one. You’re lucky that your first time was in a bed and with someone who did actually love you.”

“I know Cas and I’m sorry that your first time had to be so sucky.” And just like that I ended a conversation that had started out so joking and light hearted and ended so sourly.

Just as we were pulling into the parking lot, a thought popped into my head that had never occurred to me before. “What do we tell Niko? Did you really think he could be the one for you, Cas, or were you just so caught up with the idea that you could finally have a public relationship?”

“I never thought that he was the one, but I did like the idea of having a public relationship. I’ll admit that. I’ll tell him the truth, Dean. He deserves that much. It wasn’t fair of me to lead him on like I did, even if he will be moving back to Australia this Friday.” When he finished, I was just pulling into my reserved parking spot. Everyone knew better than to park here.

I smiled a real genuine smile then. Cas was so pure hearted that it hurt and he was all mine. “Sounds good to me,” I said and took his hand as we got out of the car.

We were just walking up the front steps of the school when ran into Niko. Cas and I were no longer holding hands by then. We thought that this would make it easier on Niko when we broke the news to him. But we were still walking side by side and joking when we bumped into him. Something in the way we were behaving must have given it away because he took one long ish look at the both of us and then resorted to glaring at me.

“Well, it looks like the two of you have had a naughty behind my back.”

Cas looked at him, clearly not as surprised as I was that he knew we had sex. He seemed to be considering his words wisely. “Yes. We did have sex. I don’t want to lie to you Niko. I was so in love with the idea of having a public relationship that I didn’t realize that the person I love was standing right in front of me all these years. I’m sorry that things had to end this way.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry that I ever had a relationship with you in the first place,” Niko replied crudely. Cas’s face went white then. Obviously, he was remembering the first time he had ever had sex.

“You bastard. You fucking son of a bitch. You take that back right now,” I stated calmly, almost matter of fact, like I could force the words back down Niko’s throat. Sometime between the “you” and the “now” of that last speaking line I had moved in front of Niko, my hands clenched into fists at my side. I was shaking with fury.

“Why dontcha make me, you ratbag? Come over here and I’ll turn ya into a trough lolly.”

Obviously he wasn’t expecting me to be thinking about hitting him before he even started talking, so when he finished talking, I swung a right hook at his face and he went down.

It didn’t take long for Niko to recover from the right hook and he was up again. He swung his right fist through the air planning to hit the lower left part of my  jaw. The thing is I’ve taken karate and other martial arts/combat training since I was little. It’s all a part of being paranoid. I’m still afraid that someday I might run into the demons from my dreams or become a part of the Hell that frequented them.

I dodged his fist and brought my own up into his stomach. Then I brought my elbow down between his shoulder blades. He fell to his knees. By this time, a large crowd had gathered around us. We were in a pretty obvious place, the front steps of the school. I just hoped that this would be settled before a teacher found us out.

“Are you ready to take back what you said about Cas yet?”

Niko spat up a little blood then coughed before he stated simply, “No.” Then he rose to his feet. He was just about to hit me again when we heard someone shout, “What’s going on here?!?!?”

“I’m not sure, Sir,” Niko started, “I was just walking up the steps into the school when Dean here decided to go all awol on me.”

I whipped around to see the principal standing there. I should have known. None of the students call any other teacher Sir or Ma'am. Students learned a long time ago that if you call Principal Snider Sir he’ll be more likely to hear out what you have to say instead of just giving you a detention right away. Great, I thought. “Actually, Principal Snider, uh Sir, Niko insulted Cas and wouldn’t take it back. And on top of that he challenged me to a fight, so if I hadn’t thrown the first punch he would have. It was self defense.”

“To be honest, I really don’t care. Both of you to my office now. You both know that fighting is not allowed on school grounds.”

Cas was waiting for me outside of the principal’s office. “So how bad is your punishment? An eternity of cleaning up garbage on school grounds? Washing dishes during lunch for a month? A week’s work worth of in school suspension?”

“Nothing so severe,” I replied laughing. “I just have detention today after school. Niko on the other hand has nothing. Principal Snider didn’t feel the need to punish him since he’s moving back to Australia on Friday anyways.”

“That’s so unfair,” Cas objected. “Just because he’s moving doesn’t mean that he doesn’t deserve to be punished.”

“Just let it go Cas. In a week we won’t have to deal with Niko anymore. He’ll be long gone and in Australia. Halfway or more across the world. I’ll see you after school tonight okay? Come to my house at 8.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be there.”

Detention sucked. I wasn’t allowed to talk and it was in the library. The librarian Ms. Meyers was crabby as all Hell. She wouldn’t allow you to use the computers for anything that wasn’t related to school work and I didn’t have any homework so she found some for me. Well, you know how I suck at Algebra II. She got me practice problems for that. Yay. So I spent four hours pretending that I was doing them when in all actuality I was writing a story and drawing random pictures all over the six paged, back to back, packet.

Detention ended at 7:00 exactly, so once the big hand landed on the seven I took off out of that forsaken place like a bat out of Hell. I got home at 7:20. I had forty minutes to get showered and cook dinner before Cas came over.

When I was done in the shower, I threw on a cashmere black crew neck knit sweater with some jeans. Then I put on some cologne. After I was dressed, I went out to start dinner. I cook for myself all the time, so I have a bit of experience. One of my favorite meals was cajun shrimp and rice. I don’t know if Cas has ever had it before, but that’s why I was making it, so Cas could enjoy it with me.

At 8:00 o’clock on the dot, Cas arrived. By then, I had finished our food and was setting the table. He knocked on the door and I quickly put the finishing touches on the table. Then I walked to the door and opened it. He had dressed up for the occasion, wearing khakis and a white button down shirt.

“Hey,” he said sheepishly, looking down. This was our first real date and I loved him for his shyness.

“Hey to you too. You know what’s funny? You’re more confident when you’re having sex than when you’re on a first date.” That got him to warm up to the occasion and we talked all night. We agreed to treat this like a real first date and obey the rules that went along with dating, especially the one for no sex until the third date.

Cas stayed the night at my house. That night we slept together, with our clothes on.

The next day we didn’t even go to classes. We skipped the whole day and just did whatever. First, we went to the South beach to go surfing. If Niko were still someone I liked, which he’s not, and he were there, he might call us surfies. Then we went to the Miami Seaquarium to see the killer whales, dolphins, and manatees. Finally we visited the coral castle, which the only thing that resembled a castle there was this little tower. The rest of it was just this courtyard surrounded by a wall. Inside the courtyard there were random coral figures and a few plants.

By the time we got home, it was late evening. Cas didn’t want to go home, so he stayed the night again. This time, however, we slept in our boxers.

When the next day arrived, we would have to go to class. I can’t just skip class everyday and neither can Cas. Plus his parents want him home after tomorrow’s classes. He sent them a text that he was staying the night, but I don’t think they were too happy about the whole skipping classes fiasco.

We awoke to the sound of my alarm clock going off. I told Cas to shower first while I made breakfast. Waffles. Today I was going to make waffles and cut up fruit to put on them. Yum, I love waffles and so does Cas.

Cas was done showering when I finished cutting up the fruit. He came out with a towel wrapped around his waist while using a smaller one to dry his hair. Sitting down on one of the stools at the bar, Cas licked his lips and said, “Mmmmm...waffles. My favorite.”

“Thought you’d like them,” I replied, as I planted a kiss on the top of his head. “I have to go shower now. Don’t eat all the waffles on me.”

That Tuesday the only other time I talked to Cas was at lunch. We never got the chance to have our third date.

It was Wednesday after school when I got the call. I had just set my backpack down on my bed when I heard my ringtone, Eye of the Tiger, start to play. Taking out my phone, I saw that it was Chelsea, one of the girls at school that I occasionally hung out with. She also rode Cas’s bus.

“Hello?”

“Dean?” she was crying and sounded panicked.

“Yeah, this is Dean. Chelsea, what is it? What’s wrong?” I asked her, trying to keep my voice level, calm.

“Dean...I don’t know...how to tell you this...but our bus…,” she started, between sobs and hiccups. “It’s been in an accident. Some of us have minor injuries...but...but there were six people sitting in two of the bench seats that got hit by this truck. Dean, they’re…they’re in critical condition…” She had gone back to sobbing full force by this time.

I felt all the blood drain from my face. Cas was all right wasn’t he? What were the odds that he was sitting in one of those seats...71:6 maybe? Regardless, I had to know. “Chelsea...was Cas one of those people?” I questioned her, as I got my keys and sprinted to my car.

“Yes...Dean... _I’m so sorry_ …,” she cried into the phone. I had reached my car by then and had already started it. I made her tell me where she was and hung up. As it turns out, the accident had happened a few blocks from my house. How had I not heard it?

I arrived when the ambulances were arriving. Hastily, I parked my car and then I ran over to some of the kids asking them where Cas was. They said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know.” And they did look sorry, so I asked them where Chelsea was. Everyone knew Chelsea. Everyone liked Chelsea. They pointed me in the direction of one of the closer ambulances, where they were getting ready to lift someone up into the back of the ambulance on a stretcher.

Running faster than I ever had in my entire life, I reached the ambulance in a matter of seconds. I came around the side of the back door and was instantly wrapped in Chelsea’s embrace. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry” she kept repeating, just like Cas had when he had first kissed me.

Cas, I thought, looking over Chelsea’s shoulder at the unconscious boy on the stretcher. His face was bruised and bloody. There were bandages wrapped around the top of his head and over one of his ears. This boy’s bottom lip was split open, one of his arms in a sling. The other rested at his side with all sorts of tubes hooked up to it. One of his legs was in a splint sort of thing that kept it straight. All these things made it so I couldn’t discern if this was just some boy or if it was Cas.

All this time I had still been in Chelsea’s arms with my head resting on her shoulder, allowing her to hold me. But now I had a sudden urgency, brought on by the fact that I couldn’t tell if it was him or not.

I gently pushed Chelsea away from me until she was an arms length away. I lightly gripped her by the shoulders and asked her, “Chelsea, is that Cas?” She just stared at me wide eyed, cheeks streaked with tears, so I shook her a little. “Chelsea, is that Cas?” I repeated, this time a little firmer. She nodded her head, new tears falling silently down her cheeks; she cared so deeply about every being on this planet and wanted to help everyone she could. _She would make a good doctor_ , I thought randomly.

The paramedics were just about to close the doors when I came up to them. “Wait, stop I want to go with!” I pleaded urgently, placing my hand on the door to stop it from closing.

“Are you family, Son?” one of the paramedics asked me, an older man with graying black hair.

“No. Not by blood, but I don’t have any parents or other immediate family, not anymore. He’s all I have left. He’s all I’ve had since we were kids. Please, Sir, let me ride with him.” I was out of breath by the time I had finished with my plead and my bottom lip had begun to tremble. I wasn’t a crier and I didn’t want to cry in front of this stranger, but seeing Cas like that just made me so emotional.

The paramedic that had previously spoken to me seemed to be in charge and still looked unsure about whether to let me in or not.  I let one tear fall free and roll down my face before I tried one last time with, “Please.” That’s all it took for the paramedic to take pity on me and open the door to Cas for me.

I climbed up and sat down in one of the seats on Cas’s side with the good arm and I clutched his hand like I was the one with all the physical trauma and he was my life line.

Cas didn’t wake for a long time, so I was flooded with a bunch of memories of stuff we did throughout the years. When I first met him we were both six and I was the new kid at school. All the other kids picked on me because back then I was poor and wore clothes from the Salvation Army store. Cas stood up for me. Ever since then we were best friends.

Another memory came. This one was a few years later when we were both nine. Cas approached me after we got out of Mr. McKinnley’s class, he was our fourth grade teacher, and told me that he needed to talk to me. We walked home that day and he told me that he was gay. He wanted to know if I was too. At the time, I didn’t understand what he meant, so I said “Yeah I’m gay. I like lots of girls” and Cas just laughed. Later, he told me that being gay meant either you were really happy or you liked the same sex. I just stared at him, mouth opened in shock. And then I laughed and said that I couldn’t believe that I’d gotten gay mixed up with liking girls. Cas just smiled.

More memories kept flooding my mind, including ones from the past couple of days. I was no longer a virgin and that was thanks to Cas. I had painted my first non-dark painting and it was of Cas. So many good things happened because of Cas.

I was still thinking about the great things that come about when Cas was around me when I felt his grip tighten. I looked up and saw that he had opened his eyes. They were shining with tears.

“Hey, it’s nice to see you...or what I can see of you anyways,” he tried to get out between clenched teeth.

“Yeah. It’s good talking to you. I missed your voice,” I said smiling, while a fresh new coat of tears covered my cheeks. I had been crying silently the whole time.

He squeezed my hand really hard, clenched his teeth so hard I thought they would break off, and pushed his head back into the little pillow that was attached to the stretcher. “It hurts Dean. Everything hurts,” he whispered and then the EKG machine flat lined.

At first I was so confused. I didn’t understand what was happening. All I knew was that Cas's hand that had been clenching mine so fiercely just a minute ago, was now slack in my own. His gaze was blank and staring at nothing in particular. And I faintly remember someone screaming “Oh, God, no. PLEASE! PLEASE, SOMEBODY HELP HIM!” before everything went black.

When I woke up, I was in a white room that smelled too clean to be any ordinary room. It smells sterile, I thought, just as a nurse walked into the room. She was average height with tan skin, dark brown hair up in a bun, and nice white teeth. If I were straight, she would have been beautiful, but obviously I wasn’t. I loved Cas. _Cas_ , I thought as a pain pierced through my heart.

“Cas?” This time I said it aloud, hoping the nurse would be able to help me. “The boy I rode in the ambulance with last night. What happened to him? Why am I here?”

She just gave me that look, the one that clearly says she has bad news to tell you, but doesn’t know just how exactly to deliver it. Apparently she had decided on the blunt, simple, give-it-to-you-straight way with a smile. “I’m sorry, Sweetie,” she began, grabbing my hand with one of her own and patting it with her other, “but your friend didn’t make it. You’re in here for your own safety. Apparently last night after your friend died, you went ballistic. They had to sedate you.”

“No. I don’t believe you,” I said, ripping my hand free of her grasp.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true. His parents have been waiting in the lounge for you to wake up. Would you like me to go get them for you?”

I just covered my face in my hands and cried, making these weird wailing noises, like an animal that’s in pain. She left and didn’t come back. I never spoke to Cas’s parents while I was in the hospital. They invited me to his funeral though and asked if I would speak about him.

His eulogy went a little like this:

Cas was gay and nobody hated him for it. To everyone who knew him, it was just a part of who he was. I’ve known Cas since we were six. He had a horrible time finding a boyfriend. Usually, he would just sneak around with other guys who weren’t ready to come out of the closet yet. I had loved Cas since we first met. I loved that he could make you laugh no matter how down you were. I loved that people were drawn to him wherever he went. I loved his slightly messy hair, his blue eyes, sharp jaw line, slight butt chin, and this half smile thing that he always did.. About two weeks ago to the day, Cas kissed me. That’s when I realized I loved him in a “more than friends” way. He was just starting to make my life better and I was just starting to make his better when he was taken away from me. I’ve done a lot of things over the years that I’ve regretted. Not hanging out with my crazy, brokenhearted mom more, not letting people know that I care about them, or even just being a loner in general. But Cas wasn’t one of those regrets and I hope that he saves me a spot at the next Seahawks game because that’s where our third date would have been.

 

*20 years later*

It’s been a long time since Cas has passed away, but I still haven’t found anyone who could ever measure up to who he was. At first, I couldn’t even visit his grave. I’d only visit it on the anniversary of his death, but as the years went by it got a little bit easier each time. Now I visit his grave everyday and go to every Seahawks game of the season. Each time I go, I buy two tickets so that Cas can sit next to me and watch the game too. I never painted a happy picture again. Cas was my first and last.His painting hung on the wall above my bed. I still paint of course, but it’s just the same old dark stuff as before. I went to college and became a pediatrician like Cas wanted to be, something Cas revealed to me one night when he stayed over. Helping kids and other people is my life now. I am the job and that’s okay with me because by doing things that Cas and I would have done together, I feel close to him.


End file.
